


I Should Have Changed That Stupid Lock. I Should Have Made You Leave The Key.

by executrix



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: AU, Alternate S4, F/M, M/M, Non-GP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 21:11:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4935505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an AU version of “Warlord” and a *very* AU version of “Blake,” Avon convenes a summit meeting. Vila throws a party. A prodigal returns. Three people die. Tarrant gets engaged. The good (for values of “good” prevailing in B7) ended happily. The bad ended unhappily. That is what fiction means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Should Have Changed That Stupid Lock. I Should Have Made You Leave The Key.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally published in the zine ['Pride and Prejudice'](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice%20\(Blake%27s_zine\)) (ed. Aralias, 2015). Contact her to buy a copy of the zine! Other fics from the zine are available in the A03 collection for the zine.

_How ‘scaped I killing when I crossed you so? Oh insupportable and touching loss!_ (Julius Caesar)

 _And now you’re back  
From outer space  
I just walked in to see you here, with that sad look upon your face.  
I should have changed that stupid lock,  
I should have made you leave the key,  
If I’d thought for just one second you’d be back to bother me._ (“I Will Survive,” F. Perren/Dino Fekaris, (c) 1978 Universal Records)

1.  
Vila Restal walked into a bar. This was entirely forgiveable. There weren’t all that many public buildings on Gauda Prime. Most of them sold alcohol to some extent, although sometimes it was only a sideline to selling Shadow or sex or two-by-fours and soda crackers. 

{{Touch courage}} Vila thought, downing a few shots of the local rotgut. He optimistically opened a slate, figuring that if he survived the night he would have plenty of money to pay his bar bill. If he didn’t survive, then the barkeep could sell his boots to cover the cost of the drinks. 

Vila looked around, wondering as usual why, when you’re supposed to meet someone for the first time, you always think everyone is them until they finally show up and you’re sure. 

The bounty hunter walked down the stairs, with the heavy tread of a large man secure in his ability to protect himself. Obviously he’d arrived early to scope out the situation. Vila gave a sad little smile, remembering hearing about this tactic from Blake. Then Vila started as if he’d been kicked by a dray horse, because the bounty hunter was—not Blake looking his best, but unmistakably Blake. 

“Bloody hell!” Vila said.

“I might say the same,” Blake said. “But what are you doing here?”

“I was going to tell you—well, if you were who you’re supposed to be instead of who you, well, are or used to be—that I could tell you the whereabouts of the great Kerr Avon, and knowing that would be worth a lot of money to you. Then I’d try to get as much of the money off you as possible, but I wouldn’t much mind if you cheated me, because I’m fed up to the back teeth and it would be worth it just to have rid of him.”

“But why? Why not just go off on your own, if you don’t want to be around him?”

“Oh, the time he attemptedly murdered me put the cherry on the fairy cake, but he’s gone mad, Bl…I mean, he’s gone off his chump, and he’s got stupid. We all thought you’d died, or I suppose Avon didn’t, and then Servalan made him think that you were alive but then that you weren’t. Dunno why anyone would believe that lying bitch about anything. And meanwhile the Liberator blew up. Or, beats me, dissolved or something, I wasn’t there but *she* was. And Cally’s dead.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Blake said softly. “What about Jenna? I haven’t been able to get back in contact.”

“She didn’t die right after the War,” Vila said. “That’s all we know. We got some more people, and a new ship, but it’s awful, the computer’s called Slave and it’s even more annoying than Orac. Oh, Avon’s still got that, no fear.”

“That still doesn’t explain why he’d want to kill you,” Blake said. “Unless he’s so thoroughly mad that he’s not responsible for his actions?”

“There are two sides to every story.” There was only one way the evening could get worse, so Vila was not terribly surprised to see Avon step out of the shadows. In one hand, he crumpled up the slinky black fabric under which he had been hiding (Vila remembered telling Avon about this useful device of stage conjurors). In the other, he carried a lightweight sniper rifle. Blake produced a responsive handblaster.

Vila sighed and reached into his boot for a two-shot derringer that seemed more than usually unequal to the situation its owner found himself in.

“Put away the guns or take it outside,” the barkeep said, so blasé that the toothpick didn’t even move in his mouth. When the miners got off-shift in an hour or so, there’d be plenty of hands to haul out bodies, if necessary. The sawdust needed replacing anyway.

“We’ll do neither,” Blake said. His free hand dipped into the pouch at his waist, and emerged with a large coin. “But bring us a bottle of arrack.”

“Bourbon,” Avon said. 

“Rum?” Vila suggested, without much hope. 

“Oh, what the hell,” Avon said, and put the rifle back in its sling. He sat down, poured a shot of arrack, slammed it down, and grimaced.

Vila did the same, although he was already sitting down and held a much smaller gun.

To the surprise of both of them, Avon turned to Vila and ignored Blake. “I found a solution to the problem, didn’t I? Which you couldn’t have done. And anyway, what I did at first was only normal. Medals wouldn’t be given out for risking one’s life to save someone else if that were the run of the mill. And don’t bother telling me that if you had to decide, you would gladly have sacrificed your life for mine. Even if it were true, it would leave us right back at what actually happened.”

“But what *did* actually happen?” Blake asked, sipping judiciously at his drink.

“There was this bloke we were running a con game on, but he wasn’t playing fair when he was conning us back, oh no, he tried to kill us and we were in a shuttle that was going to crash. To lighten it up Avon decided to chuck me out but then he changed his mind and found some fancy rock—always took an undue interest in rocks, come to think of it, you have to wonder—and chucked that out instead.” 

Avon shrugged. “Partisan, but not entirely inaccurate.”

Blake considered asking about the rocks, but decided that could wait. 

2.  
“Come with me to the woods,” Blake said. “I’ll show you how my operation works. I have another appointment. There’s a girl who thinks I’m a bounty hunter.”

“Really? Can’t think why,” Vila said.

“Either she’ll have some information that I can use—that’s how I’ve been financing operations here, you see” (Blake didn’t mention that there had also been a few bank robberies, he knew he’d never hear the end of it if Avon got wind of it) “—or, if she hates bounty hunters and is willing to do something about it, then it shows she’s the right kind of recruit.”

“Blake, back when I was a kiddie, everybody hated bounty hunters—all kinds of coppers, really. It wouldn’t prove anything. Anyway, d’you want to be like Avon, spend every day on the shop floor with people who hate you?”

Avon said that, speaking of that he’d go back to Scorpio and tell the others. If Blake had asked him how he proposed to do that, he might have told the truth, but as it was he let Blake assume that he had a lightflyer or a djip. 

Blake and Vila walked out of town, into the woods (not an excessively long trip). Sometimes Blake would look up, marveling at the magnificence of the centuries-old trees. Sometimes Vila stopped, tripping over a tree root or gulping at the air. “Spent most of my life either Inside or at least in a Dome,” he said. “I don’t really get the point of Outside, back home at least nothing was trying to kill you that wasn’t a person.”

Blake checked coordinates on his communicator, and said, “We’re here.” He motioned to Vila to hide among the trees. Vila did not argue the toss. 

A dark, thin young woman with a dissatisfied face soon jogged into view, with a shotgun hooked to the bandolier crossing her torso. The rotgut and arrack rose up in Vila’s stomach, and he clamped a hand over his mouth. Then he decided that his hands could be put to better use, clasping his ears as he shut his eyes and waited for the latest nightmare to play out.

For the second time in an hour, Blake unholstered his handblaster. 

“You’re a bounty hunter,” she said. “We don’t like scum like you.”

“’We’?” Blake said. “Who might that be?”

“People who stand up for themselves. We did all right with GP as an open planet, but we won’t stay still to be picked off by the Federation or the traitors who sell out the patriots to them.”

“That’s a Federation weapon,” Blake said, his voice neutral. 

“Yes, it is. Took it off the bugger’s body.” 

Vila cautiously ventured to open his eyes. Blake grinned, opening his arms. “Congratulations!” he said. “You passed the test! You’re just the sort of recruit we want. Fearless, experienced with weapons. And in this case, ‘we’ means the fighters at the rebel base.” Vila’s mouth dropped open in shock. “What’s your name?”

“Arlen,” she said. “Who’re you?”

“Blake,” he said. “Roj Blake.”

“Can’t be,” she said. “Blake cashed in his chips on Jevron. Everyone knows that.” 

Blake chuckled and got as far as “Rumours of” when Arlen fell flat on her face, blood seeping from between her shoulderblades. There was a rustle of leaves, and a thud, followed by a louder thud of Avon jumping out of the tree from which he had just dropped the rifle. 

“What—the—Hell!” Blake said. “Vila told me that you’d gone mad, but this! You’ve killed her!”

“Is it like a library card? Do I need a signature to charge out a book? I didn’t like the sound of the whole ‘you want to kill me, so I think I’ll offer you a job’ plan,” Avon said. “So, expecting it to go south, I set up a hide.”

“When’s Dr. Jekyll getting back?” Vila said. “He’s a lot nicer.”

“While I was waiting, I did a frequency sweep, and someone was receiving on the Federation high-security encrypted channel. For the moment, I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it wasn’t you.” 

“Of course it wasn’t! What do you think of me?”

“It’s been a long time, Blake. Things change. If I’d left a pint of milk on the table, it would be thoroughly soured by now.”

“If the table was on the Liberator, it’d be thoroughly vaporized by now,” Vila said. 

“Yes, I’d like to find out more about that,” Blake said. “For all you wanted the ship, that’s the best you could do?”

“I’m not prepared to talk about that,” Avon said, and disappeared.

Blake’s eyebrows levitated. The sound wasn’t quite right, nor was the interference pattern in the thinning air. “But I thought you said the Liberator was gone, Vila?” Blake asked. “It’s an amazing coincidence that you found another ship with teleport.”

“No, we didn’t, Orac fitted up a new one,” Vila said. “Fair dos, Avon helped.” 

“If only he’d been able to do that at the Aquitar Project, he would have become wealthy legitimately,” Blake said. “And I’d never have met him.”

“I’ll drink to that!” Vila said. Blake wasn’t so sure. 

3.  
“Have you got a bracelet, Vila?” Blake asked. 

“’Course I do, I wouldn’t want to spend any more time on this sack of shite planet than I need to.” 

“I don’t suppose you have a spare?” Blake asked, wondering if Vila’s popularity figures would have declined or risen if he actually had succeeded in selling Avon. “Speak of the devil,” Blake muttered, as Avon materialized again, holding out a bracelet. “Oh, well, might as well come along if you’re coming,” Avon said. The sensation of teleporting felt a little different. They reassembled while Blake was analyzing it.

“What’re you up to?” Dayna asked. “Came back up, bounced right back down.” She saw the new visitor (given the size of the flight deck, it would have been hard to miss him) and said, “Hullo, I’m Dayna. Avon doesn’t look angrier than usual so I suppose I don’t need to try and shoot you.”

“You’ve heard Vila talk about Blake,” Avon said.

“Gawd, yes, he does it all the time,” she said. Blake grinned. “You never do, though, we always wondered.” Blake’s grin started to turn down, then he reconsidered and laughed.

“Slave? Anything I ought to know about?” Avon asked what looked like a citrus reamer and Blake assumed to be the ship’s computer. It was dispiriting how inferior this ship was to their previous home.

“I am not satisfied with the intelligence reports, Master,” Slave said. “The security of Xenon base is subject to compromise. Federation activity is increasing, probably in connection with the Pacification Project. The Pacification Project, Master’s Master, if you are not aware of it, involves attempted population-wide subjugation through the use of Pylene 50, under the direction of…”

“Yes, yes, I’m aware of that,” Blake said.

Avon flinched. “You see what I’m up against.”

“In his day, Orac took some getting used to.”

“A rising tide lifts all boats, you mean?”

Soolin came in from the galley, holding an empanada in a paper handkerchief. Introductions were made, and repeated for Tarrant. There was a ceremonial inspection of the teleport. 

“There’s a hangar at my base,” Blake said. “If you’re concerned about the security of your base, mine is large and quite well defended. And recruiting people of your caliber would be quite an accomplishment for me.”

Vila rocked with déjà vu. Blake was always going to have a bigger ship and a bigger base, and Avon was always going to resent it, even if it was his best interests to go and sit on the bigger one. 

“Why not?” Soolin said. “If we take Scorpio, and some resources, we can always go away again if we don’t like it there.” She gazed steadily at Blake, informing him that if he tried to keep her at the base when she didn’t want to be there, well, let him try. She felt heroically altruistic, because if she never saw Gauda Prime again it would be too soon, but there was no point looking for a good alternative when all you could do was pick the least rotten bad one.

They packed up what passed for their valuables, mostly gray jumpsuits and ammunition, and headed for GP. 

 

4\.   
A month later, Soolin checked the ID number of the spacecraft against the manifest on her clipboard and nodded to Klyn. 

“Permission to deplane granted,” Klyn said over the radio link. The artillery crew sighed and walked away from the cannons. 

Two women in camouflage fatigues climbed out of the ship. The first to descend was small, not young, Easterly; the tape over her breast pocket said “Jiang-Lu.” Her hair was caught in a bun. Soolin estimated her age at fifty or so, and approved. Anyone who reached that age while pursuing vocational arse-kicking must have some skill and discernment. (Soolin did not, for example, expect Tarrant to achieve that landmark.) 

She couldn’t read the other woman’s nametape. She was rather taller, had blonde hair that was undercut--shaved beneath the ear on one side, with the rest of her hair piled to the other side, then French-braided. She had supplemented her uniform fatigues with red patent, Cuban-heeled boots. 

Soolin wasn’t quite sure why The People’s Liberation Front had requested to visit Gauda Prime Base—an inspection visit? Merger negotiations? Sabotage? But she had been there long enough to wonder whether Blake’s insistence on playing a lone hand was the most productive strategy.

5\.   
Jiang-Lu noticed that, when she went to the gymnasium at five a.m. to do her tai chi and tae kwon do forms, Avon was often there lifting weights and doing pull-ups after work. And when she left the gym, Blake was often there running the track that ran around the periphery, above the bleachers. 

Tarrant noticed that many of the people at GP Base greeted the pretty blonde as a long-lost old friend, so he thought she’d do all right on her own. Worrying that the older woman might be feeling a bit at loose ends, he offered to show her around the base. She declined, saying that she had to do her daily practice. Tarrant was wearing sports clothes, so he offered to spar with her, promising that he would go easy on her, considering the age and height difference.

Her strategy seemed to be to envision an invisible cube, then throw Tarrant successively into its corners, like a martial version of mime. This was painful, but not as humiliating as it could have been, because it took place early enough for the gymnasium to be fairly empty.

After awhile Tarrant decided that it was no hard feelings, except in the good way. He put on a clean shirt, flourished his fingers through his hair, and knocked on the door of the largest room in guest quarters.

He wasn’t sure what to call her—was she a Captain? A Colonel? A Commander? A Consultant? Under the circumstances, he felt that it would not be inappropriately informal to use her first name. “Hullo, Juanita? It’s Del,” he said. “Del Tarrant. Well, you know what they say. Only the brave deserve the fair.” 

The door opened. Vila, still putting on a fluffy pink robe that had obviously been snatched up a moment before, said, “Yeh? And which one are you?” The room lights had been dimmed. It was just possible to glimpse Jiang-Lu, propped against the headboard, smoking a cheroot, as unconcernedly uncovered as a prelapsarian Eve.

6\.   
“I’ve got an idea,” Vila told Blake. “I think we should throw a really big party.”

“Yes, you would say that.”

“But this is special, like,” Vila explained.

“Oh, no, he’d absolutely hate that…” Blake began. Then he remembered some late-night discussions over brandy and cigars he’d had with Jiang-Lu about Revolutionary Justice. A smile spread slowly over his face. “*What* a good idea, Vila. I’m sure I can rely on you to organize it. And publicize it, of course. Ask Soolin how much we can afford to appropriate for it.” 

7\.   
Avon’s mastery of weaponized etiquette ensured that he turned up on time for the soiree. He obediently posed for pictures under the huge garland of metallic letters: “Happy 40th Birthday, Kerr!” and in front of some of the numerous posters with “40” in gigantic letters crossed with “Avon” and, of course, in front of the big Styrofoam “cake” spread with joint compound whose top was entirely pavé with candles. (There were also edible sheet cakes—white cake with pink royal icing and multi-colored sprinkles, and yellow cake with chocolate frosting.) 

In honor of the occasion, Blake wore his dress uniform, or rather, one of his half-dozen dress uniforms. The Communications, Procurement, and Diplomatic sections had each submitted two suggestions. To avoid internecine warfare he had all of them made up and wore them more or less in rotation. This one was dark green velvet, with a high collar, three lines of brass buttons, and gold braid up the wrists and forearms. Because Avon was the guest of honor, Blake opened the ball by partnering him in the coranto.

Avon, to show that he had to appear but didn’t have to approve, wore a black poloneck jumper, a pair of plain black trousers, and heavy-treaded boots. In an early moment when the music quieted Avon took the opportunity of saying, “You look like a golf links, Blake. I’m certain that that will strike terror into the hearts of tyrants everywhere.”

Then Blake led a reel with Jenna, in a lovely red dress that couldn’t have taken up much room in her knapsack, and a necklace that Blake rather thought might have come from the Liberator’s Treasure Room. After that, one person after another lobbied him or took him aside for a private word until his throat was dry and his feet hurt. 

After the line dances and square dances, the Communications staff lowered the lights. A mirror-studded ball came down from the ceiling, and the smoochy numbers began. Blake noticed that Jiang-Lu—looking very different with her hair down, in a metallic blue jumpsuit that Blake thought was Klyn’s—danced every dance with Vila. So that’s how the milk got into the coco-nut, Blake thought. 

Blake went to the buffet table, held a cup under the spigot of the cold-drinks dispenser (considered more secure in terms of preventing the punch from being spiked in general as opposed to consenting adults pouring in the contents of their own flasks) and piled a couple of sandwiches onto a plate. He recognized Bek eating a piece of cake and chatting with one of the artillery trainees, which surprised Blake because Bek was scheduled to work that shift in the computer room.

“Is something wrong?” Blake asked, wondering if Bek had come to inform him of some sort of emergency and taken awhile to find him.

“Oh, no, sir, everything’s fine. I was working away at a bug report, I’d only got three of them taken care of. Then Avon came in and said I could run along, he’d do the shift for me. So of course that was the best thing all round, I’m sure he’ll get the other hundred and twenty-six done by morning. I wish he’d take all my shifts for me.”

“Yes,” Blake said frostily. “That would free you up to do something really interesting, like mopping the corridors all the time.” 

8.  
“I brought you a tray,” Soolin said. Blake looked up from the piles of paperwork on his desk. “Thank you,” he said. “Have you had a chance for your own meal?”

“Oh, no fear,” she said. “I always take care of that!” 

Blake unrolled the napkin, took up the fork, and took the lid off the plate. He knew what it would be—civet of wild boar, again—because he met with the catering staff each week to approve the menus. 

Hunting parties were among the most popular assignments. Blake hoped it because his troops enjoyed feeling useful to their comrades, or because former Dome dwellers relished the outdoor life and once-poor recruits enjoyed eating meat several times a week—and not because Blake wasn’t giving them enough pitched battles where they could pump bullets into living flesh. 

9.  
“I don’t suppose we like each other one bit more than we did before,” Jenna said.

“…Perhaps a bit, when we haven’t been living in each other’s pockets?” Avon said.

“…But I’m still glad to see you didn’t get killed.” Avon nodded to indicate that the feeling was mutual. “I quite like my new job. The PLF is doing a lot of good, and I like working with Jiang-Lu.” 

“Why does she hate being called The Cavalry?” Avon asked. “If anything, it’s an honor.”

“You don’t like being called Kerr, and that’s your proper name.”

“What puzzles me is how you ended up there. I thought you had too much sense to throw in with a raft of politicos who make Blake look like Solon.”

“I tried to go back to work,” Jenna said. “But it turned out that associating with the likes of *you* was bad for business, ordinary decent criminals didn’t want to have anything to do with me. After awhile, I was approached by a PLF recruiter, and decided to join up. I quite like it—plenty of action, lots of opportunities for women in senior positions, not too much spit and polish.” Although Avon had less than no interest in a job offer, he nonetheless noticed that none was forthcoming. 

Sometimes it was so boring at the PLF home base on Selmarino that Jenna resorted to the library. There was a book of myths and legends. One of them was about a Spartan boy who, to avoid getting into trouble for stealing a fox, kept it underneath his cloak and didn’t make a peep as it devoured his vitals. Jenna thought that was Avon all over (except, while Vila might steal a fox simply because it wasn’t nailed down, Avon probably wouldn’t unless they were exchange-traded). Just because you stood there stone-faced didn’t keep everyone from seeing the beast thumping about inside your outfit. The hemorrhage was a dead giveaway as well.

It was the emotional equivalent of her time at the Daar-al Amago. Eventually Jenna dreaded having to step into anyone’s tent, the simplest message got caught up in a routine of being offered food and drink while the offeror insulted it and you refused it, even if the food was marvelous and you were ravenous because you’d been out all day doing something for someone that you couldn’t discuss until the whole carry-on was complete. She much preferred being able to go to the GP commissary and get a sandwich, even if it was likely to contain antelope salami. 

“So what brings you here?” Jenna asked. “Which are you, flotsam or jetsam?”

“Flotsam, I suppose—I washed up here, rather than being affirmatively discarded somewhere else.”

“It doesn’t sound like your leadership bid was an outstanding success,” Jenna said bitterly. She would never forgive Avon for Zen’s death. 

“Talking to Vila, I see. Not that you did that much when you lived under the same roof.”

“Oh, your new crew confirm it. They’re awfully young, aren’t they?”

“And disgustingly healthy,” Avon said. “Jenna, unlike Blake and his Utopian fantasies, I’m not leading anyone anywhere. I’m trying to stay alive, and it just happened that they…accreted. I didn’t want them around, but I didn’t want them to wander off and die of sheer gormlessness.”

“Let’s see now, one of them is an FSA-trained pilot, one a weapons designer, and one a mercenary. Yes, it does seem that they couldn’t survive without your help. Or rather, that if anything, their odds of survival were greatly reduced by meeting up with you.”

“Do you think I kept them from heading off to do…whatever is the inferrable outcome of what they were doing before? At least Blake can put them to work, if they want to stay. Or offer them transport to wherever they prefer to go.”

“I shouldn’t think they’d need transport, they have a ship of their own. However modest.”

“Ah. Well. I’ve donated it. Lent it. To Blake’s operation.”

“And I shouldn’t think it was yours to dispose of!”

“Blake accepted it readily enough. It’s like the Liberator, Jenna. Or Pass the Parcel. We operate on the basis of ships belonging to the last person to steal them.”

“That’s not like you, to make it harder for yourself to run away.”

“There are things to be done here. I may stay awhile. This Pylene-50 business, for example—that’s a desperation move, not a show of strength. The Federation lacks the men and materiel to keep its empire together. You and I are in the Federation’s bad books, they’ll keep coming, so it’s as well that you have some protection. Winning is the only safety, but if Blake plays his cards right, then perhaps he might win. If the mice scamper away one by one, the cat may starve to death.”

“If you’re expecting me to carry that to Blake backchannel, forget it. Tell him yourself. That doesn’t sound like you. That sounds almost like hope.”

“Yes, it’s dreadful. Like stretching out a frostbitten limb in front of a fireplace.”

10.  
Avon put down the metal briefcase and tapped on the door. “May I come in, Commander? I don’t know if Vila is there or not, but if he isn’t, perhaps you could give him a message for me.” 

Jiang-Lu opened the door. Vila stood behind her, his arms crossed. “Come in, then, no point making Blake replace the door when you kick it down.”

Avon held up the briefcase, opened the latches, and emptied it on the floor. A lot of bundles of cash fell out. “Your share of the Big Wheel money,” Avon said. “That’s a million credits. Which should be enough to give you a fresh start, wherever you’d like to go.”

“It was five million credits,” Vila said.

“I’m going to give the rest to Blake.”

“Lots of times when we could have used that money,” Vila said.

“I know. It…simply wasn’t convenient to access it before now.”

“And you’re just going to turn it over? All of it? Not keep any of it?”

“Yes.”

“That jumper doesn’t look familiar,” Vila said. 

Avon shrugged. “Merely…frictional.” One cashmere sweater, a kilo of coffee, a French press, some entertainment-system chips, and the best obtainable air mattress; Avon didn’t think it even counted as a transaction fee.

“Trying to get rid of me, then.”

“Just as you like. I’m staying here. It might make you uncomfortable, thinking you might run into me around any corner. And of course Commander Jiang-Lu will be leaving soon, and you seem to be very good friends, so I daresay she would at the least provide you with transport out of here. With cash in hand, you can go where you like, do what you like. Be safe. Or put yourself in harm’s way, but in the manner of your own choosing.”

“Anybody else—anybody *human*--would apologize to me.”

“Anybody else would keep the money, that’s human nature. See which one stands you in better stead when you want to buy a flat, or lease a lightflyer, or even go on a bender: a sincere apology or a million credits?”

“Don’t bother showing off for Nita, anyone who didn’t know better would think that you cared about me.”

“Well, I’ve known you for a long time, I suppose that’s a proxy.”

“Don’t pretend. Do you know what you were?” Vila said. “A music-hall turn. Amateur. Always saying how much you didn’t care. To an audience that was professional at not caring whether your cared or not.” 

11.  
Avon and Tarrant weren’t around, and Scorpio wasn’t in the hangar. Blake reminded himself not to get overly concerned until they’d been gone for a few days. In the event, they returned the next morning. 

Avon spent the day on materiel procurement, or, as Tarrant would say, going shopping. Tarrant carried out his own assignment conscientiously, although he wasn’t sure why Avon—or anyone—wanted the specimens matching the print-out that Orac provided. He had sliced off most of the required leaves and stems, picked the flowers, and dug up roots and placed them in the appropriately labeled test tubes. 

Zeeona looked up from the photographs she was taking for 707 J. U. Bellhangria Xenobotany. She thought the other young, foreign ethnobotanist in the marsh (she categorized him as an obvious outworlder, by his clothing) was quite handsome. Despite his silly hair. 

When the young man stowed the specimens in a knapsack and sat down on a tuft of grass, Zeeona approached him. “Hallo!” she said. “I’m Zeeona! Are you an exchange student? I thought I knew everybody in the Department of Betafarlogy.” The department was full of Hooray Henrys, it would be a treat to meet someone really intelligent and serious about his subject.

“Pleased to meet you, Zeeona. My name’s Del.” He took a thermos flask out of the side pocket of the knapsack. “Cup of tea? I find this is thirsty work.” She smiled at him. He gave her the cup from the top of the flask, and luckily had a spare folding cup in the knapsack. He filled it, hoping desperately it wouldn’t melt and spill on his trousers. She shared her packed lunch with him, although it turned out that the sandwiches were filled with some kind of seaweed, so he ate only half a sandwich and manfully refused to deprive her of any more. 

Tarrant didn’t have much of a cover story prepared, so he was forced to encourage Zeeona to talk about herself. She was charming, candid, and funny. It was an entirely new approach to meeting girls, and he found that he liked it. 

Zeeona bent forward and kissed Tarrant on the cheek. “Here’s my dentydeets,” she said, showing him the screen of her redewriter. 

Tarrant blushed. “I can’t give you mine,” he said. “I travel a lot, you see.” He thought it sounded feeble. 

12.  
Blake took a deep breath. “Soolin, I understand that you feel an affinity to Avon. You were part of his crew, after all. And it would take a formidable major-domo indeed to prevent him from swanning about as though he owned the place. But you can’t just give him everything he wants. I mean, yesterday you detailed half-a-dozen people just to unload his--the ship. That planet-hopper. And I still haven’t a clue what was in there or what was done with it.”

“I’m not specially fond of Avon,” Soolin said. “You weren’t there, of course, but Scorpio wasn’t a happy ship, even when Dorian owned it, and things went downhill fast. Dayna rather likes Avon, I think, but he’s worn out his welcome with Vila. And Tarrant wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire.” She paused to consider. “Might do otherwise, though. Blake, I didn’t consult you because you were busy and I knew what you were doing was more important. I approved the assignment because I had Security section check over the cargo. No threats, and all good useful stuff.”

Blake sighed. “When you see Avon, tell him to come in here and explain. No, on second thought, comm him and tell him to sod off, that’ll get him in here faster.”

13.  
Avon was almost vibrating with excitement. “Ah, you felt like dropping in, and just expected me to be free,” Blake said, speculating about the cause, when Avon set down a metal briefcase on top of the central pile of papers on Blake’s desk and teased the clasps open like a practiced ecdysiast. The case was full of credit disks. 

“The Big Wheel at Freedom City…” Avon began.

“I knew you two were up to something. I was busy at the time, as you recall, and it wasn’t really worth finding out what.”

“Rebellion is an expensive business,” Avon said. “And prodigal of resources. As a cover for my real activities on Betafarl, I bought four thousand pairs of boots. Unisex, mixed sizes, of course. They’re the hardest to source in-house. I also bought a large order of fabrics…”

“Hence the new outfit,” Blake said. Avon wore a sapphire-blue top with a boat neck. The unaccustomed exposure of Avon’s neck reminded Blake poignantly of where he had learned to nibble and where to bite. The sleeves were rather full on top; no, Blake corrected himself, Avon’s arms had filled out a little. And Blake knew that the embroidered ribbon at the cuffs concealed a Scorpio teleport bracelet. Although, with Scorpio unmanned and in the hangar, it was only a token gesture toward the potential for immediate escape. 

“Blue, grey, jungle camouflage, desert camouflage. And a laser cutter with hundreds of customizable patterns, a couple of industrial sewing machines, and a serger.”

Blake didn’t think it was worth enacting a sumptuary law forbidding anyone to wear colors that looked good on Avon. It might be worth it, although unenforceable, to limit its applicability to Avon.

“Av’n, I’m sure we can find uses for all of this, but why didn’t you consult me? There must be many more pressing needs. It should have been brought up at an Operations meeting.” And for a moment Blake was nostalgic for the days when there weren’t any committees at all.

At “consult,” Avon blinked once, a long-eyelashed slow clap, but didn’t say anything.

“And I know it’s a strategem, but all right, I *am* curious. What were you really doing there?”

“Forbus—the man who Servalan forced to create Pylene-50—repented of what he’d done. Tarrant and Dayna got the formula for the drug.”

“I’m glad to see you acknowledge that they’re good for something.” 

“They were just in the nick of time, Servalan was very good at what she usually does. Luckily enough, an antidote can be synthesized from plant materials. Like the tassifer root that grows plentifully on Betafarl.”

Blake realized that, with Avon bending over the desk with his hands braced next to the briefcase, it was possible to ascertain the state of Avon’s feelings and render some informed speculations about his underwear. “Quite like the old days,” Blake said, leaning forward with his elbows on the desk.

A bar of angry red spread beneath Avon’s eyes as he realized that he should have inquired more deeply into the stretch factor of the jersey. He pulled over a chair and crashed down, crossing his legs for all the good it did. “I’ve sent you a file with the inputs needed to manufacture the antidote and distribute it to the planets that have been targeted for Pylene-50 attack.”

“I’m impressed that you can carry on working, when you’re in that state.”

“I don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Avon snapped.

14.  
“Launch!” Jenna said, uncapping a bottle of flamwyn from her last trip to Keezarn, and pouring out generous shots for Blake and herself. 

“Any chance of pulling you back in?” Blake asked. 

Jenna shook her head. “Without the Liberator, it wouldn’t be the same.”

“This isn’t the same,” Blake said, a little sadly. “When I look back, I suppose none of us thought we’d ever *be* this age, much less that we’d spend more time going over the books than planting mines.”

“Speak for yourself! Juanita’s in charge of all that. There are advantages to staying in middle management. And I’ve seen plenty of action in the last year.”

“When I look back, I realize that I knew I had to seize the marvelous chance I’d been given with both hands! But I didn’t have much of a program. I miss the intimacy of there being just a few of us. Nowadays I have to schedule a regular time just to go over the new recruits’ files so I can match up the names and faces.” 

“Why keep on with it, then? Throw in with us, and leave the bureaucracy to Klyn and Deva. Or just take a ship out of the hangar and go buccaneering again.”

“It sounds pompous, but I’ve got to think of the greatest good of the greatest number. There are enough people here, and prospects of far more, to really think about, not just what the galaxy would look like without the Federation, but what it would mean to offer a better alternative.”

“I know you’re not objective about it,” Jenna said. “But you shouldn’t put Avon in charge of things. I wouldn’t trust him running a whelk-stall.”

“I’m grateful for the teleport, and the Pylene-50 antidote is going to make quite a difference.”

“He couldn’t stand being in your debt, of course he’d bring you something. If you made him a cup of tea he’d have set up an ambush with a case of champagne just so *he* wouldn’t have to feel grateful to *you.* He’s not stupid, I grant you, but   
one thing I’ve learned is that if you’re going to be in an organization, you can’t play a lone hand. At a minimum, you’ve got to be able to get along with people. What you have, Blake, is more than that. It’s a gift. It’s not just that people like you, they trust you. You can lead. Oh, it’s a poisoned gift in some ways, and it’s almost independent of where you go and what you ask for.”

15.  
“It occurred to me a while ago that an alliance could be created, among some of the fringe planets that never fully accepted Federation domination,” Avon said. “Some of them—perhaps because they didn’t have much worth stealing—never attracted much Federation interest either. And they’d be more inclined to listen to you than to me, Blake.”

“You can take that to the bank,” Vila said. “If he’s not robbing it, that is. Avon’s idea of diplomacy is like breaking someone’s leg and then saying ‘lean on me.’” 

“Blake, I agree you’d be a good choice to convene the meeting. I’m not sure about security of GP Base, though. Your location might be compromised,” Jiang-Lu said. “Depends on what that girl…Arlen?”

Blake nodded; at least that was the name she gave when he tried to recruit her.

“…managed to transmit. That could be your quid pro quo. You’ve got the formula for the Pylene-50 antidote. You supply the antidote, your forces, your expertise—military and the teleport and so forth. They provide military force, raw materials, and a manufacturing setting.”

“Security concerns aside—and they can’t be very far aside!—I don’t know how many more people this base can sustain. Or how practical it is to look for a full-scale army base, or what would be needed to build it from scratch.”

“You could specialize,” Juanita said. “Less a full-scale military camp. More of a War College. If the Conference of Non-Aligned Planets is ever going to amount to anything, they won’t just need boots on the ground, they’ll need expertise in artillery and aerospace warfare. And they’ll certainly need to stop focusing on which chieftain of which puddle insulted another one three hundred years ago. That’s where you come in—your reputation precedes you, but you’re not involved in any of these--rumbles.” 

16.  
“You needn’t bother, Tarrant,” Avon said. “Between myself, Orac, and Slave I think I can just about manage the milk run to Betafarl.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Tarrant said. “I haven’t all that much to do here, might as well go with you. Betafarl’s an interesting place. It’s more…urban than we’re used to.”

Avon narrowed his eyes; Tarrant’s previous trip to Betafarl had, after all, been a Tour de Swamp. “Very well,” Avon said. “I’ll be leaving as soon as my…purchases…have been packed. If Scorpio is loaded by 16:30 hours, I’ll give you another half an hour and then leave without you.” 

Tarrant saw a kiosk on the street, and went over to get a packet of wine gums. The kiosk carried a full range of glossy magazines. The same photograph adorned the cover of several of them: a smiling girl with a tiny gold lame hat, with pearl bobbles all around the rim, perched on her pyramid of pink hair, cutting the ribbon to open a new hospital. The captions identified her as Zeeona Zukan, or Lovely Zee, or Zee-Lectable. “Oh, bugger,” Tarrant said. 

It seemed pretty hopeless, but he’d got himself out of tighter spots before, so he summoned her dentydeets. To his surprise, and delight, she agreed to meet him for a drink. He’d mugged up a bit about botany from Orac, so at least he could nod and ask a few questions.

“Dad’s going to a conference next week,” she said. “Very hush-hush, political stuff, you know. He wants us to become respectable. If I’m lucky, he won’t want to do it by marrying me off to some wrinkly who’s been on the outs with Betafarl. The convo sounds awfully boring. It’s at a grotty little place called Gauda Prime.” She pointed it out on a starmap on her communicator. “Do you think you could get some time off work, keep me company? Dad can get you clearance as part of the entourage, if you have your own transport and can make your way there.” 

“You’d be surprised,” Tarrant said. 

17.  
“Can we go someplace private?” whispered Lord Bovomir Hieltratert who, according to the program prepared by Blake’s staff, was Duke Boorva’s chief of staff. Blake wasn’t entirely sure, but presumed that Hieltratert’s intention was diplomatic rather than seductive. The Count was a small, rubicund, portly type. Blake thought he could defend himself fairly well against a one-on-one attack, and he had body armor and a panic button to summon his own guards in case of ambush.

“Come through this way,” Blake said. “There are security cameras in the passageway, but not in…here,” he said, opening the door to one of the kitchen storerooms. If he had to, he could always create an avalanche of canned tomato puree. The cooks preparing high tea would come running, rolling pins at the ready. 

“I wanted to get in a word,” Hieltratert said. “I mean, I’m sure you’ll be offered a lot of bases, but ours is absolutely the best.”

Insofar as this was no longer Blake’s first time at the rodeo, he did not feel compelled to point out that this was his first and presumed only offer. 

“It’s a very large tract of land,” Hieltratert told him. “An island off the West Continent of Tarl. And the drainage pumps are brand-new, no worries there. We’d protect you, of course. We’ll let you have a whole krestomur.”

“Forgive me, I’m not familiar with that term.”

“It’s, let’s see now, 2,500 soldiers. A dozen rocket launchers. A bulldozer, for trenching. And a pod of battle elephants.”

The laugh lines at the corner of Blake’s eyes crinkled. “I think we can do without the elephants,” he said, but Hieltratert looked so crestfallen Blake gestured “oh, all right,” and said, “Thank you. I’ll have to consult with my technical team, and have DiploSec get to work on drafting the treaties.” 

18.  
“I don’t think much of that plan,” Zukan said. He yawned, not because he was bored but because it was three in the morning. “I don’t mind the part about fabricating an excuse to walk out, the conference is tedious enough. And I wouldn’t mind planting bombs to destroy a rebel base and create a power vacuum …if I weren’t in it at the time, and my daughter here with me. Of course, we could use a time switch. A nice, long time switch. And then Zeeona and I can leave in your craft, with you, after the bombs have been planted and the detonators set.”

“Oh, you couldn’t possibly fit,” Commissioner Sleer said. “It’s just a tiny pursuit ship, and there are my mutoids.”

Zukan smiled. “We can swap, then. Zeeona and I will take your ship, you and your mutoids will find plenty of room in mine...with whatever *modifications* you’ve already made to it. In fact, I don’t think you planned for me to survive at all.” 

Sleer didn’t get a chance to answer. Her image had already been flagged by the base’s face recognition system as not matching any of the residents or the conference guests. Jiang-Lu heard the exchange on the security feed she was monitoring, and rushed in, and shot both of them (two shots in the chest, one between the eyes). She got Jenna on comm, and she appeared five minutes later, still buttoning up her shirt but with a fully charged weapon. The clip in her hair wobbled, the clips of ammunition were securely stashed.

The Cavalry looked down at the woman’s corpse. “Didn’t she used to be someone important?”

“Yes,” Jenna said. “But it was a long time ago.”

“I suppose we’d better let Zeeona and the Betafarlians decide what to do. What about her?”

“Probably, she should just disappear,” Jenna said. The sight of her fallen enemy was nowhere near as enjoyable as she frequently imagined it would be. She went to the MedBay, unfolded one of the stretchers, and trundled it over. Halfway through, she turned back, and got a body bag and some test tubes for blood and hair samples. 

Jiang-Lu summoned a couple of recruits, to dig a shallow grave for Servalan’s body (in case anyone wanted to claim it, although nobody ever did). 

At a more respectable time in the morning, Dayna’s artillery team went over Sleer’s pursuit ship (which was retained as spoils of war and for reverse engineering purposes) and Zukan’s spaceship. It was quite a novelty for them, they were used to putting bombs into things rather than taking them out. 

Tarrant offered to take Zeeona back home in the now-secured ship, but she said she would rather remain on GP, so Zukan’s entourage hammered together a catafalque from materials in the base’s workshops and took his body home for a state funeral.

19.  
Officially, there was no chapel at Gauda Prime base. Blake understood that, before the scientific method was available, people would naturally look for explanations of cosmic phenomena. In the long run, though, he thought that religion was responsible for far more hatred and destruction than the spurious comfort it provided.

Unofficially, there were plenty of empty rooms in the base, and it wasn’t worthwhile to micromanage the whereabouts of every folding chair or wooden table or shift swap. Usually the people who wanted time off on Friday were roughly equivalent in number and assignment to those who wanted a couple of hours off on Saturday or Sunday.

For a while, it was necessary to offer a premium in time off for Sunday morning shifts. It lasted about three months, after a skirmish in which one of the survivors proudly flourished the New Testament with an embedded bullet. Blake was disgusted—didn’t people see that the same would have been true of a Mills and Boon romance, or an equivalent thickness of hard-core pornography? Nevertheless, he just waited for it to blow over, and placed a large order for lightweight body armor.

On Tuesday afternoon, when, as far as Avon could tell, there was no scheduled service, he went to the chapel. He copied all the Requiems he had downloaded to the chapel’s Comm system. He listened to the first one—the Mozart—for about five minutes. 

There was a box for donations. Avon wondered if Vila knew about it, approved of it, or simply considered it not enough of a challenge to his skills. Avon crammed in a couple of hundred credits’ worth of disks, lit all the candles and all the incense, and slammed the door on the way out.

“Requiem aeternam dona eie,” he said, under his breath.

20.  
Dayna came charging into Jiang-Lu’s cabin. Juanita sighed. The denizens of GP Base seemed to have a poor understanding of personal boundaries. She liked Vila a lot, but she wished that he hadn’t conditioned everyone to not bother locking anything, and therefore into believing that nothing was ever locked.

“How dare you!” Dayna shouted. “You killed Servalan!”

“Of course I did,” Jiang-Lu said. “It was an operational decision. You can watch the tapes yourself. They were conspiring to wreck the conference and assassinate Blake. What was I going to do, arrest her and Zukan—the leader of a sovereign nation, by the way, and entirely beyond court jurisdiction?” 

Now that she’d had time to think about it, Jiang-Lu wasn’t sure that she had done the right thing, but her philosophy was, what’s done is done.

“I don’t care about *him,*” Dayna said dismissively. “But her! She murdered my father! It was my job to kill her myself!”

“From what I can tell, she killed a lot of people,” Jiang-Lu said. 

“Well, not personally, she didn’t have much bottle. Always got someone else to do her dirty work,” Vila said. 

“Ms. Mellanby, what you have to understand is that, if you’re going to be a professional soldier, it’s never about individuals or personalities. There was an immediate threat to the base, and a longer-term threat to the conference. I neutralized it.”

“You can’t just go around assassinating people! You have to leave that up to people that it really matters to!”

“Girls, girls, you’re both pretty!” Vila said, which had the effect of pacifying them by infuriating them both at Vila. After a beat he decided that was his aim all along.

21.  
Whether Blake’s eloquence carried the day, the sudden deaths encouraged the others, or because the rest of the non-aligned planets were so happy to see the back of Zukan, a treaty was quickly concluded and signed by Mida, Lod, Chalsa, and Boorva. A trickle, and then a flood, of outer planets, and even a few close to Earth eventually signed up.

22.  
Vila put a thin, shiny black box down on the table. Tarrant remembered Vila carrying it out of Xenon Base. Vila tapped in the code (“Teleport”) and rummaged through it until he came up with a ring set with three stones.

“Here,” Vila said. “Now that I’m buggering off, I decided that Avon’s a worse bastard than you. A tough choice, but that’s what makes horse racing. Your Zeeona seems like a nice girl. Bet she’d like an engagement ring. I think the one in the middle’s a real diamond, and I’m almost sure about the ones on the side being sapphires.” 

“Where’d you get it? And those?” Tarrant said, gesturing at the contents of the box.

“Here and there.”

“I can’t very well tell Zeeona, look, we got your father killed, and now here’s a stolen engagement ring.”

“They do say, begin as you mean to go on. Anyway, we didn’t, he got himself killed,” Vila said. “Not the wisest, trying to sell out a base full of trigger-happy paranoiacs.”

“I do like Zeeona awfully,” Tarrant said.

“You said it, I didn’t.”

“No, Vila, it’s an idiom, it means…” Vila gestured impatiently. “Betafarl. Do you happen to know, is it a hereditary monarchy?” Tarrant wondered if the queen’s husband became king in his own right, or was merely the prince consort. Still, Tarrant thought, you could do a lot of good that way.

Vila shook his head. “Nah, just a regular dictatorship. In fact, it might not be the safest place for Zeeona, even with you looking after her.” 

23.  
Blake went to the airstrip to say goodbye to Jiang-Lu, Jenna, and Vila. “It feels like school breaking up,” Blake said. “I wish you the best of luck, and I do hope we’ll meet again.” He shook Jiang-Lu’s hand, hugged Jenna, and slapped Vila on the back. 

Jenna squinted, shading her eyes with one hand. She saw Avon at the far end of the field, and waved to him. He waved back. They were in perfect understanding: they would be glad to receive proof of life…every three years or so. 

24.  
There were certain difficulties in configuring Mandela Base into a combination military and scientific facility. Although elephants *are* quite useful in heavy construction work in a swamp. Once Avon and the rest of EngSec got a look-in, the electricity supply was fairly reliable. The rice paddies, hydroponic terraces, duck and goose hunting, and monkfish farming operations soon provided fresh food to supplement the protein bars, canned goods, grainmash, and vitazade brought over from GP. 

As Hieltratert said, it was a good place to build a base. All you had to do was chop down some bamboo, dig a hole, lash that bamboo into a frame, and put it back where it used to be. In the meantime some more had grown, you wouldn’t run out of bamboo in a hurry. 

It was not quite that simple, but pods of modular units could be constructed quickly by bolting prefabricated panels, containing electrical wiring, plumbing pipes, and Tarial cable to the framework; installing slab floors with build-in heating; spraying foam inside and outside the walls; installing windows and doors; and slapping the solar roof on top. Guests attending the War College slept in a dormitory or, for longer residential courses, shared rooms with a bunk bed. The regular residents had rooms of their own, with double beds standard, because couples formed and split and re-formed too fast to keep track of. For recruits who had been Labor Grades, it was dazzling luxury. Blake suspected that some of the Alphas and Betas who came and went, like comets, they might have stayed if he still had a posting on the Liberator to offer them.

Apart from one four-story Admin building, a three-story community center, a two-story mess hall/commissary and the baths complex (for washing and swimming; built over the water purification unit), all of the other buildings were just one story. The Pylene-50 antidote factory was one long, low shed. So was the assembly line for building teleport equipment and casting and wiring teleport bracelets. 

Mandela Base was evolving its own culture. The crazes currently occupying the residents’ off-duty time were mural painting (of varying themes and skill levels, although dragons were endemic); garage bands (Blake blamed Avon for this, because he had made music chips readily available); book groups specializing in erotic epic poetry from Khom; and home dressmaking. The most modish outfit was a boat-neck jersey with an embroidered patch on the front, accessorized with bangle bracelets covered with braids of scrap material. Next quarter, Blake thought it might be AmDram, kathakali dance, bid whist, and competitive Sudoku. 

25.  
Once Zukan’s successor, Chancellor Finn, determined that Zeeona had no interest in deposing him, or indeed spending more time on Betafarl than she absolutely had to, he was willing to negotiate a contract. Scorpio Waste Disposal Ltd. quoted a low price for making regular runs to Betafarl to remove organic wastes—tassifer root, for example. 

The trip from Mandela Base to Betafarl was not an unduly challenging one technically. The actual piloting was generally done by a trainee in the first chair, with Flight Instructor Tarrant in the second chair. Nevertheless, there were some white-knuckle moments, and no one except Slave really enjoyed the trips.

The combination of Zeeona’s experience with Betafarl’s native plants and her biogenetic engineering background made her a natural to lead the Pylene-50 antidote manufacturing team. 

“What’s wrong, darling?” Tarrant said, when she returned from her work shift one evening. “You’re not wearing your ring!”

Zeeona bent down to kiss him. She tugged at the chain around her neck to show the ring. “It kept tearing through my gloves in the clean room,” she said. “Gloves are important, you know! I should hate to contaminate a batch of antiserum!” 

26.  
Blake said that they had changed so much in the past few years, couldn’t they start again? After a brief argument about whether that made them different people and therefore they’d have to start, full stop, rather than start again, Avon admitted that in all the times he had imagined this particular argument he never won it. 

They were in Blake’s room. (The air mattress was still on a Need to Know basis.) Caught between the pressing need to be naked in Blake’s bed two years ago and never, Avon stood, transfixed, one hand failing to unbutton his shirt.

“What’s the matter? Am I not pretty enough for you?”

“Oh, don’t be stupid, Blake,” Avon said. “I’ve re-calibrated Beauty. But still. You ought to have a surgeon fix that, you’ll need eyes in the back of your head with this lot, much less two of them.”

Blake flipped back the blanket and wrapped a hand around his half-hard cock and enjoyed Avon’s look of utter stupefaction. “If you’re just going to be a room decoration, I suggest you go over where the light’s better,” Blake said. 

“Everything’s been hopeless,” Avon said, looking down at the packet of clothing he was holding as if he were passing the Justice Machine’s sentence on it. “This is hopeless.”

“Then you haven’t much to lose, have you?”

Avon dived into the bed, grasped Blake’s shoulders, and sunk his face into Blake’s collarbone. For a moment, Blake was gratified to feel Avon relax utterly, his muscles fluid, believing completely that everything could be remembered, accounted for, repented, and healed.

The next moment, Blake was amused, because Avon realized this, and immediately turned back into a surfboard.

“I don’t need you to be stiff *everywhere,* Blake said, shifting a little back in bed to make room, and tenting the blanket over the two of them. Avon cupped his hands beneath Blake’s chin and kissed him for a long time, then started kissing his shoulder and progressing across and then down. Blake thought it was fair enough: it had been a long time, and he *would* want to see over the property. Although the dilapidations were considerable. 

Blake resumed the old game of seeing how many locations on Avon fit precisely into his palm: the angle of a shoulder, a shoulderblade… Underneath the blanket, Avon said “Dammit!” and had a messy, undisciplined, inartistic orgasm.

Just for the hell of it, Blake thought of telling Avon it was all right, he could owe him one. But, in a rare moment of agreement, they so much shared an objective. Avon folded up like a protein, his mouth and hands granting equally ungraceful grace to Blake. 

“I hope you don’t mind,” Blake said. “I’ve decided to designate Deva as Chief Scientist. In practice, you’re the chief, of course, but he’s been here—been with the base, in its various incarnations—far longer. And I rather think the title would mean a great deal more than it would to you.” 

No protest was forthcoming. Blake looked down. Avon was either asleep or pretending to be. Blake surmised the former, judging by a small patch of drool on his chest. He didn’t think Avon was a fervent enough devotee of method acting to make himself look bad. 

It was time to get back to work. Blake wriggled out from under Avon, knelt straddling him, and smiled. Then he climbed out of bed and found one of his boots. The new, short model, with the artificial sheepskin lining removed. It was the monsoon season on Tarl. So far, the waterproofing seemed to be holding up.


End file.
